Sorry about the silence here on the blog 
I found out today I have a couple more responsibilities at work – I had the option not to take them up though. One will be really interesting, and one will be a *pest*. But never mind, it will save everyone else a lot of drama if I do it, and I like to be nice sometimes 
I think you have to try and balance everything out. There’s no point in taking on extra work if it’s going to make your life a misery. Any extra pay just isn’t worth it. Sometimes it’s worth having to watch your budget a bit more carefully if it means you’ll have time up your sleeve, less stress, and just generally enjoy your life more.
When I was working full time in my other job I had the money to do lots of things that were, quite frankly, luxuries. Not that there’s anything wrong with that :p but in the end, those luxuries weren’t worth it, because I was driving myself into the ground. I was starting to see the doctor more than my own mother. I had heart palpitations, migraines, and upset stomach most of the time, and then it was thought I had ulcers. There were so many weird things going on I started to think I was on the verge of dropping down dead at any minute, it was awful.
So now I choose what I will do, not anyone else. It was a great lesson, in that when your life is run by other people it gets to be too much.
You have to be in control of your own life.
You have to decide when enough is enough.
I really need to get writing tomorrow. It has been far too long since I posted!
I’m really surprised to see that a lot of you are rereading the older posts, especially the ones on work and motivation. I think there are a lot of people out there who are unhappy with some aspect of their job. It’s a horrible time of year though when you’ve just had the long summer holidays and now it’s back into the grind ….
There are things you can do about it though. You only get one life. You won’t be 30 again, or 45, or 23, or whatever age you are. Why spend your precious life doing something that bores you, or makes you mad?
We all have mortgages and bills and things like that. I know you can’t just resign and fly off to some beautiful tropical island somewhere. You need to keep being paid. No one wants to be broke and living in the back seat of their car. But life isn’t all or nothing. There are a million little things you can do. You don’t need to be on a boring endless treadmill.
You only get one life
If there is something specific you’d like my opinion on just email me at coachdawnunderscorenewzealandatyahoodotcom
I can reply either via email, or as a blog post. I won’t give your name or details
I’ve been thinking about this topic for a while – it often shows up in my stats as something a lot of people search for.
There’s all kinds of advice I could give, and a million different topics that come under this heading. But I think there’s just one important thing you can do for yourself, if you’re losing motivation and have no idea how to get it back.
Losing motivation can manifest itself in lots of different ways. You might hate getting up in the morning, you might fight with your colleagues, you think the job is boring and yet you can’t be bothered looking for something better. The whole place just makes you feel bored and frustrated … you can’t get away from it, it’s always on your mind.
From my observations and personal experience, the most important thing is to make sure you have a balanced life outside of work.
It sounds so simple.
People who are tense and frustrated at work most often do not have a balanced life. They’ve got no hobbies, no social life, they’re unhappy in general and it’s not just work. They most often are not eating properly, they don’t get enough sleep. Their personal relationships are not what they should be. They have nothing to look forward to and they feel as if they’re wasting their life working where they are.
They also identify strongly with ‘what they do’.
They are a doctor, a teacher, an accountant, a mother, a receptionist, a bank teller.
They’re not anything else. They have no other identity. If you ask them, they can’t happily reel off a list of things they love to do outside of work. They spend their weekends catching up on housework and other stuff that bores them, they don’t do anything ‘just for fun’. When bad things happen at work, they take it very personally. Performance reviews etc take on a very personal meaning. A colleagues casual comment can sting them for weeks.
If you’ve come here looking for motivation because you’ve got a boring job, I think you need to have a look at your entire life, not just work. This is what coaches do. They help you to identify what’s actually bothering you, and to break it down into manageable parts. I guarantee it won’t be just your job that’s boring you, it’ll be other stuff as well. Once you get it all into perspective and start looking after yourself you’ll gain huge benefits and feel a lot happier. Things at work won’t have the same impact on you – it is just a job. I don’t care how ambitious you are, in the end you’re a human being, not a job description.
Email me: coachdawnunderscorenewzealandatyahoodotcom
Lots of you come here looking for information on this topic.
I have to confess, I’m pretty strict on this. I think it’s really important. I’m not the person you’ll see drunk at the office Christmas party, I won’t be seen coming in with a hangover. I’m not the person who sends the grubby email jokes via office email, and I’m not the person who has ever been seen with just a *tad* too much cleavage.
Take office email, for example.
Of course you know that if you use work email, you have no privacy. It’s not just the tech support people who have access, it’s who might forward your message on. Carefully consider what you’re writing. Don’t fire something off if you’re feeling stressed or angry. Make yourself wait until you’ve calmed down. Don’t be slack on the proper salutations, either. Spell check, conclude it properly. Give the other person the respect they deserve as a colleague. You’re not talking to a ‘mate’ as such, you’re at work.
Make sure you use the appropriate language. Read over your mail and think : would you be happy about your boss reading what you’ve written, or your partner?
Some people at work like to forward jokes and links that are unrelated to what they’re supposed to be doing. I don’t think this is a good idea. It gives the impression their mind isn’t on the job. Personally, I don’t like to think I’m the only person doing the work, while someone else is surfing the Net :p It’s also hard to tell what might be offensive. Different people have different boundaries. It’s not worth annoying someone or offending them for the sake of a forwarded joke.
Another thing I feel strongly about is touching.
A hand shake is fine, a pat on the shoulder for a job well done if you know the person. But I think that at work we should respect people’s space. It’s not the place for hugs, or a jab in the ribs hello, or sitting too close at the staff table.
Finally, if you’re going to work, look carefully at your choice of clothing. The important thing at work is that attention is paid to your performance, not your long legs :p Different jobs will have different parameters. If you’re not sure, look around and see how your colleagues and your boss are dressed. You’re paid for your skills, not your body. You need to be comfortable, clean, tidy and professional. If you are able to go to work and concentrate on what you’re doing, you’re probably ok. If you need breaks to freshen your lipstick because that particular red comes off quickly; if you need to adjust your skirt every time you sit down, if your boss asks you ‘if you’ve just come from the gym’ you need to think again.
Finally, please think about the way you talk to your colleagues.
In general, I stay away from personal conversations at work. We are talking my part time job here, not my coaching There are a million topics you can use to make or start conversations without getting into personal things that are inappropriate. You can be perfectly relaxed and friendly without discussing personal things. I think it’s good to keep your mind on the job – compliment someone for something well done, offer assistance if you’re able, make someone a cup of coffee if they’re looking stressed.
There are a lot of ways to be friendly, approachable and professional that don’t involve crossing over into behavior that could be misinterpreted. If you’ve specific questions, feel free to leave a comment and I’ll try to address it in my next post
Today I went to work for a while – I haven’t officially started back yet, but there were a few things I wanted to get done.
One interesting thing that happened : I have been given responsibility for another colleague – kind of quality control. In my job there is a lot of paperwork, and this person has been snowed under with it. The person has done a lot of work recently, but unfortunately what they have done has been really inefficient. They have gone around in circles until they are floundering. So today I got to look at an awful lot of paper which is really no use to anyone at all.
Luckily for me, I’ve made the same mistake myself, so it wasn’t hard to see what was going on. It also wasn’t hard to tactfully set the person on the right path. We were also able to arrange a meeting time, which we will do each week. I want to make sure the person doesn’t spend time and energy on the wrong things.
This person doesn’t appear to get very stressed, but I think that would only be a matter of time.
One of the common mistakes that people make at work seems to be trying to accomplish everything at once. Being able to narrow things down to specifics is really helpful. If you say “I want to have this project finished in four weeks time” – that’ll only cause you sleepless nights and put you under pressure. Break the project down into smaller parts. Remember to stick to the absolute essentials, don’t go getting carried away with stuff that isn’t relevant. Even if you give yourself a specific task to accomplish each week, this will make it easier. Write it all down too. You could do it in a chart format, or as a list. But just get it broken up into smaller pieces. If you have deadlines, write in a reminder to yourself a fortnight in advance so you’re prepared. Think hard about what you actually want to accomplish.
Make it measurable too. Think of ways you can actually prove that you’re getting things done. Look at the parameters for the project itself and be sure you’re achieving exactly what is wanted. Don’t go off on a tangent
After that, you can look at each week and then break it down further into days. If you have three things to do per day you will be a lot less under pressure. You will be able to spend time making sure the finer details are done properly.
So I guess the overview is: be specific. Don’t go off on tangents. Plan properly, and stay on track.
I just had to drop in to announce that it is *so* fun having a 13 year old who just started secondary school. The first day was today. After all the buying of uniforms, stationery, school bags, roman sandals, pens, caps, enrollment papers, subject choices …. it was really fun to see him go off on his first day. He had a blast, by all accounts. Although I could have done without sewing a million nametags on everything, it was worth it when he came back and told me all the details. It’s exciting
On the daughter front – I was sitting here this afternoon checking some emails while she and her friend played outside with a bucket of water and two cups. The shrieking, giggling, splashing, leaping around and running away were hilarious.
I remember when my kids were babies, and someone said make the most of it, they grow up so quickly. I remember looking down at those rose-petal soft faces, and thinking what a load of rubbish.
But it was so TRUE!
I still get in trouble for calling them both ‘bubby’. I have to stop that. It wouldn’t be cool if I let that slip in front of secondary school sized mates :p
Someone was talking to me the other day about how bad they felt. They’d made a huge list of ambitious resolutions, which have all dropped by the wayside.
The trick is to make tiny, tiny steps. One at a time, even.
A lot of people worry about their health. So this post is focused on healthy things you can introduce into your life, one by one.
You could : drink a glass of water before every meal/have an extra cup of vegetables at every dinner/give up a glass of wine a day/divide a bag of lollies in two, and eat half a bag instead of a bag while you’re working 
You could buy a non stick frying pan/eat nuts and raisins instead of lollies/have one teaspoon of sugar in your coffee instead of two.
You might want to : cut out one boring programme on tv you watch out of habit, and get outside during that time/investigate vegetable steamers and decide if you want to get one (steamed veges are yum!)/drag your bike out from the garage and go for a ride (take a kid!)/have a go with a skipping rope/get rid of that dusty old pillow and buy a nice new one.
Other healthy things : go to bed a half hour earlier/stop biting your nails/stop biting all of your nails except those on your little fingers!/go for a walk three times a week (don’t try for every day)/eat your dinner from a bread and butter plate instead of loading up a big plate/try some low fat options in packaged food, if you eat it/get yourself some nice smelling sunblock and wear it every day/get your teeth professionally cleaned/get a checkup at the dentist, then reward yourself somehow!/buy yourself an electric toothbrush/floss your teeth every evening, religiously/buy yourself a rice cooker/investigate some new yummy healthy recipes, and only cook the ones that include your favorite ingredients!
Tiny little steps.
